


Love at War

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-28
Updated: 2007-08-31
Packaged: 2019-01-19 03:34:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12402225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Very L/J-centric, with few invented filler characters, though the Marauders obviously figure in. (Oh, and Snape.) Lily and James are best friends; apprehension, jealousy, and adjoining Head rooms complicate things; war brings out their best and worse selves. Starts at the end of sixth year, and continues on past Hogwarts. Expect angst, sex, fluff, drama, etc. Good stuff.





	1. Scheming, Flying, Orgasming, etc.

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

1.1

She is sprawled out on his narrow bed, red hair tangled on his pillow, bare feet rough and dirty on his clean quilt. Her sun dress is twisted around her body and she distractedly plucks at the strap on her pale left shoulder. "Jaaames," she groans, one arm flapping dejectedly in a half-arsed bid for sympathy. "James, you don't understand, I can't _be_ there!" James sits on the floor, unhappily evicted from his squashy bed, and at this latest plea he looks up from his magazine. His nose and cheekbones display a magnificent scarlet sunburn. A tuft of over-long black hair flops onto his forehead.

"Lily, you're whining again."

"I'm not -- !"

Firmly: "You are. And I understand your predicament -- I do, Lily! -- but what we need is a plan."

"A scheme?"

"A scheme."

She mulls over this for a long moment. "A scheme," she repeats. "Okay."

"Okay."

"What kind of scheme?"

"I was thinking maybe something involving Filibuster's...?"

"What!" She springs upright and the bedsprings squeak mightily as she perches on her knees, glaring imperiously down at him. "In Surrey! Not in a _million_ years!"

He has the good sense to look half sheepish. "Or not."

"What about some kind of... forged letter from Dumbledore? Informing them that I have to stay at Hogwarts over the summer for, um. For prefect stuff."

"Actually..."

"Hm?"

"Well I don't know, I'm just thinking aloud. But it occurs to me: you'll probably be Head Girl next year, you know."

Biting her lip, she considers this. "You think so?"

"Most certainly!" he exclaims in an almost-passable McGonagall imitation.

" _Hey!_ Stop making fun of me! I'm smart, it could happen!"

A little smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "You're very smart, darling. Head Girl-ship is definitely in the offing. Which --" he preempts her impending interruption "-- I bring up because it could figure into, yeah." He raises an eyebrow. "The Scheme."

"How?"

"Well it certainly wouldn't buy you the whole summer, but I'd reckon we can get... at least three weeks on 'pre-term preparations' alone."

She regards him with a sharp glint in her eye. "Smart, smart. Yeah. My parents would go head over heels for that school-prep-Head-Girl stuff. And they don't owl, so they'd have no way of checking up on me. I could just send them periodic updates about how I'm scrubbing portraits or whatever."

"Oh! and nasty run-ins with the Bloody Baron. Then Petunia'll content herself with your misery and hopefully refrain from, um..."

"Sticking her long skinny neck where it doesn't belong?" Lily offers. "Agreed." She sits back on the bed, crossing her legs and resting chin upon arm upon knee. "You sure your parents won't mind?"

"Are you _kidding_? They love you to pieces, Lily. I reckon my dad would adopt you if he could; whenever you visit he can't stop raving about 'Lily this' and 'Lily that.' Oh, and Mum keeps on dropping these completely blatant hints about us both being single and, well, y'know. She'll croon, 'Didn't our Lily look _lovely_ the other day, James? She's so _mature_!' " James's impression of his mum includes a sing-song voice and eyebrows wiggling suggestively at every mention of Lily's name. " _Our_ Lily, pfft." He shakes his head with a grin.

"Oh brother," she groans. "That's the _last_ thing I need! What'll they think if I stay for three _weeks_ this summer! In the same room!" She runs her hands through her hair in exasperation, and one leg twitches involuntarily.

"Oh, you know what we should do?" he enthuses, struck with sudden inspiration. "When you come over we should pretend we're dating and it's _really_ serious. But be the most obnoxious couple ever, you know?"

"Like holding each other's hands all the time, even when we're eating?"

He grins. "And wiggling our tongues at each other in public places."

"And, and I could moon over rings and white dresses."

"And we could bicker over the stupidest things, like who'll get up to make a pot of tea."

"Brilliant!" she says, collapsed in giggles. "Yes, definitely. And you can make the fake Dumbledore letter look all official?"

"I'll put Sirius on the task of obtaining some of Dumbles's stationary and Remus can forge the signature -- trust me, he's _amazing_ at this kind of thing."

"I've no doubt," she says with a wry little grin. A beat, then: "...D'you really think I'll be made Head Girl?"

He nods seriously.

"Who'll be Head Boy then, you think?"

"Maybe Prewett, from Ravenclaw. Or Lestrange; smart as a fucking tack, he is, hate though I do to admit it."

"Hmm. You think maybe Remus -- ?"

"No. He's out too often, dealing with his -- ahem -- his furry little problem, to be a reliable Head. Maybe McKinnon."

"God, Marlene would _hate_ that."

"Yeah. Seems a bit unlikely anyway."

She makes a noncommittal sound and they both lapse back into silence. She lies back on the bed, on her side, and brings her knees up to her chest. After a while she lets out a great sigh. "I wish I didn't hate my family."

"I know."

"Does that make me a bad person?"

He pries himself off the ground, all long limbs and limber joints, and stands so directly above her that he can see her eyelashes stuck damply together. "Of course not," he says quietly, brushing the hair from her eyes.

1.2

The next morning dawns hot and bright. Sun slants stingingly into Lily's eyes at quarter to seven, but she wakes only long enough to yank her bed hangings shut with a grumpy _hmph_! At eight James plants himself firmly at the foot of the girls' staircase and cups his hands around his mouth. "UP AND AT 'EM, MORNING GLORY!" he bellows, startling a few early risers in the common room and eliciting rather more sleepily angry retorts from up the stairs. "LILYYYYY! UP NOW PLEASE!"

Senses still sleep-dulled, she rolls out of bed, promptly finds herself tangled in her thick red bed hangings, and thrashes about on the floor for a minute before Marlene rescues her.

"Merlin, what happened?" Marlene asks, mildly alarmed.

Lily sputters incoherently, cheeks flushed.

"Oh, by the way, James is calling for you."

Steaming, Lily stalks to the top of the stairs and flings open the door.

"Ah, indulging our flair for the dramatic this morning, I see," James greets her brightly from the bottom, where he leans nonchalantly against the wall. "I slept splendidly, thanks for asking?"

"Ha. Ha."

"Oh Lily, Lily. Give it a rest." He looks up at her: hair like a flaming haystack, eyes puffy, sheet marks denting her arms. Flimsy blue nightgown with a very high hem, very low neck. She's definitely not wearing a bra, he decides. "You look nice."

"Stop degrading me."

"I wasn't!"

"Eyes on my _face_ , then."

"Oh that. Right then."

"Atta boy." The shadow of a smile threatens to steal over her patented early-morning-storminess. "So, your majesty: what's the big emergency?"

"Ah, yes. Flying." He fails to elaborate.

"Hm?"

"Well, we're going home this afternoon. Need one last fly on the pitch before summer. It's _tradition_."

She rolls her eyes.

"And," he adds pointedly, "I recall a promise."

"Oh, bollocks," she sighs, accepting defeat. "Fine. Just let me put on some clothes."

"Five minutes!" he shouts up the stairs at the shutting door.

Echoing back down: "I SAID FINE!"

1.3 

And before long she's down in the common room, trailing her broom behind her. Her hair still looks like a hurricane hit it in the night, but she's pulled it back with a dangerous-looking clip so only a few stubborn curls corkscrew out around her temples in the humidity.

"Corduroys, Lily?" he asks, assessing her with a hand on his chin. "Think I preferred the nightgown."

"You're so cute," she says stonily. "Let's get moving or I'm going back to bed."

They take off from a creaky mullioned window at the end of the third floor corridor, Lily first and James moments later, dropping sharply down before angling their brooms upwards and to the right, in the direction of the Quidditch pitch. Once in the air, Lily's grumpiness melts away and the elation of the open sky fills her nostrils, tickles her scalp, makes her shirt billow and her eyes water. She looks over to see James wearing the most peculiar expression: he looks half dazed, but his eyes are wired with a hard, concentrated delight. She shouts something over to him, but it's muffled by wind and speed.

"What?" he mouths.

She swoops up next to him. "I SAID," she shouts, "YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE HAVING AN ORGASM!"

He swats at her head but the look doesn't fade. "TAKE ME, SKY, TAKE ME NOW!" he yells at the clouds. Turning to her: "But then again, I feel I ought to point out that you're also riding a long hard stick." He smirks.

"Riiight," she says, casting him a gimme-a-break look. "Flying turns me on." She pretends to pump the broom for a moment, moaning and arching her back as her eyes roll back in her head, a caricature of sexual ecstasy. James turns away, his ears suddenly red and his trousers uncomfortably tight, grateful for the sudden distance flying affords. He peels away and upwards, leaving Lily looking smug for all the wrong reasons. She's certain her absurd performance has convinced him how foolish his "long hard stick" innuendo really was. So she takes off after him, wind whistling in her ears.

As they rise higher, they feel the light condensation of cloud-cover dampen their cheeks, and the Quidditch pitch shrinks to a small postage stamp of green among the verdant Scottish hills. She cannot imagine a more perfect way to spend her last morning at Hogwarts before the summer holidays. Merlin, but she'll miss this place, and him. He's her best friend.

A few paces to her right, he glances over. _No, god dammit,_ he mentally curses himself. _She's my best friend!_

**A/N: Sorry I've abandoned my other fic; I just didn't have time once I started college. Which may be the case with this one as well, but I started this with the idea that it be MUCH less time-consuming. I'm going to make up plot as I go along, not worry about shitty dialogue or fluffy scenes or whatever. I'm going to write what comes into my head, and not agonize over whether I'm writing beautiful sentences. So if this is utter crap, sorry. It's just, I keep on wanting to read a fic about James and Lily's relationship as I imagine it -- dramatic, yes, but also somewhat realistic (ha!) and never hateful. It's the best friend card, I know it's been done before. But I'm just writing what I'd like to read. So let me know if I should continue! Love you guys, Aseret**


	2. Something Nice

2.1

The castle they returned to hours later was not the castle they had left: the whole of Hogwarts' population, students and teachers alike, were swept up in the annual hurricane of old spellbooks, missing socks, over-full trunks, panicky owls, and general mayhem that went part and parcel with end of the year festivities. Sirius, however, looked supremely undistressed as he wheeled about the common room, dancing a slightly tipsy tango with Marlene amidst the flurry of packing that consumed the rest of Gryffindor tower.

"Prongs!" Sirius exclaimed when the two scrambled through the portrait hole. "Lily!" He and Marlene met them halfway across the common room, nearly as tousled and out of breath as Lily and James. "Have a good fly?"

James grinned hugely. "End of the year, Padfoot! Sky was completely empty, perfect conditions." Lily nodded vehemently in agreement.

"All the same," she said with a happy sigh, "I do need to pack."

James cast her a brief, inscrutable glance as she disappeared up the girls' staircase, Marlene a few paces behind her. Simultaneously, Peter and Remus burst out of the boys' dormitories, looking harried. "She's coming to live with me," he announced happily, and no one asked who "she" was. "At the end of the summer I mean, for a few weeks. I do need _your_ help ironing out a few small details in the deception, good sirs, but the plan should go easy as Herbology."

"Christ, Prongs," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "Can I at least be best man?"

"Hm?"

"At the wedding."

"The what?" James had been absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on the back of a squashy armchair but at this, his head snapped up, confusion written across his face.

Remus grinned. "You do act somewhat...smitten around each other. Flying solo together --"

"Tradition!" James interjected.

"-- staying together over the summer--"

"Just the last bit!"

"-- and so forth."

"Don't be ridiculous!" James burst out. "Of course we --"

"Methinks he doth protest too much," said Sirius with a sly grin.

Several minutes of sharp verbal jabs later, a rather more bruised-ego James wisely recognized defeat. He let out a great, long-suffering sigh and muttered something about mismatched socks on his way up the boys' staircase. When he turned out of sight there was a pause, then the three boys collapsed in laughter once more.

"I wonder how she actually feels about him," Remus mused a little later, wiping the damp corners of his eyes as Peter's final giggles abated.

"Purely platonic," Peter said. "It's got to be. You know if she fancied him she wouldn't spend nearly as much time with him."

"And she probably wouldn't let him see her first thing in the morning, with puffy eyes and frizzy hair," Remus added. "Girls hate for blokes to see them like that."

"Although she is fairly stunning regardless," Sirius amended. "But yes, point taken. I think she honestly wanted James to move on, all those times she rejected him, though he deluded himself that she was playing hard-to-get."

"And now that he's grown up a bit, stopped chasing her, she's able to see him as a friend, treat him civilly," said Remus.

"More than _civilly_ ," said Sirius. "She's all over the poor git. I do hope he's moved past that crush as he so vehemently claims, because if he's still pining for her I imagine this new-found 'civility' would be downright torturous."

They were quiet for a moment, each nodding his head in agreement.

"Yeah, he's not over her," Remus said after a minute, with conviction.

Sadly, Sirius nodded. "Yeah."

2.2

And indeed James was feeling fairly tortured as he thought back on that morning's fly with Lily. Her _face_. And those _sounds_. He shook his head to clear it of her image. But everywhere he looked was the red of her hair (bed hangings, Quidditch gloves), the green of her eyes (grass out the window, plant by Remus's bed). He didn't want to be away from her, even for an hour, and now he faced two months of her absence. Why couldn't she just stay the whole summer? he wondered. Screw propriety. She didn't want to be at _home_ , that much was certain. And his parents wouldn't mind...

But this train of thought was quickly quashed when he descended to the common room half an hour later, trunks in tow, to see Lily's eyes crinkle with happiness as they met his. Her happiness, it was clear, was the happiness of a good friend, and her open face concealed no hidden desire for his skin, his hair, his warm body beside hers. Not the way his whole body went taut at the sight of her, sometimes, or the way he'd turn halfway to jelly whenever the scent of her caught him unprepared. And so it really wasn't fair, to either of them, to spend the whole summer in close proximity. Lord knows he'd have to beat off every night, having her there, and she really didn't deserve to have her open, kind, _platonic_ friendship taken such advantage. What on earth was he going to do next year?

Frustrated, he exhaled mightily and ran an antsy hand through his bothersome mop of hair.

"James?"

He jumped. So wrapped up was he in his thoughts, he hadn't even seen her approach. And now she was close, he could smell her, and his muscles did that jelly thing while his brain scrambled to get his bearings. "Right," he said thickly.

"What?"

"What?"

"James, are you all right?"

He looked at her, his mind set, and things suddenly became easier. He hardened his heart a little bit and smiled, a crooked, joyful smile that matched her own. "Sorry. My mind was elsewhere. You all packed?"

"Yep. I was just about to head down to the carriages. Care to join me?" She glanced down at his packed trunks.

He blanched. "You know -- um -- I actually forgot something -- so I'm not completely done packing. Yet. Yeah. Sorry. I think Marlene might be ready, though -- you go ahead with her, I'll be down in a few minutes, find you on the train." His ears were a little warm, he realized to his chagrin.

"Marlene's not ready yet, she has to find her dress robes," Lily said bleakly. "Oh well, I'll find someone. See you on the train, then." And she turned, lugging her trunks to the portrait hole, and he wanted to help her, actually just to gather her in his arms and kiss her senseless, but through his last reserves of self control and half a miracle, he kept his feet planted where they were, and he only raised a hand to wave at her unseeing back. His lips were dry and he suddenly had a headache. He sank into the nearest armchair and waited, not moving a muscle, until his friends came down to accompany him to the carriages.

"Where's the wife?" asked Sirius, poking James in the ribs.

"Ow." He cast Sirius a look slightly darker than the poke merited. "She went down before."

"Oh. Okay. She still want us to do the Dumbledore forgery Head Girl note thingy, for the end of summer?"

"Suppose so," said James.

2.3

Exiting the Hogwarts Express several hours later, Lily and James hugged briefly, not lingering, before going their separate ways. It was a great deal faster and more superficial than either had anticipated: no tightly clasped hands, no welling eyes, no last-minute promises that they would write every week.

Lily wondered at James' sudden and rather unexpected distance. She didn't wonder _too_ deeply, though, for she knew that he got like this sometimes, inexplicably, and he'd be right as rain in a few days. But... she wouldn't be able to see him in a few days, to be sure. Damn the holidays. Damn propriety -- lord knows her family wouldn't miss her if she spent the whole summer at the Potters. But no, she'd write. She'd see him soon enough. Too bad that he decided to sink into one of his moods on their last day together, though.

She sighed, brushed a curl from her temple sticky in the humid June air. Massaged the back of her neck and looked upward at the clear sky, remembering James in flight that morning. His body was made for flying, she thought; it was all wires and angles. She remembered the way his arms, still unhealthily pale from a gray Scottish winter spent cooped up in the castle, had tightened under a sheen of sweat. Unthinking, she moistened her lips.

Across the station, James watched her. Noticed the damp curl, the soft neck, the wet lips. Groaned softly and nearly keeled over where he stood.

"All right, Prongs?" Sirius asked in concern. Then he followed James' line of sight to its inevitable conclusion, rolled his eyes mightily, and clapped his friend on the back with enormous force.

"Ow! Hey!"

"Prongs, let her go."

James cast him a scowl in reply.

"Oh, don't deny it," Sirius said, exasperated. "I'm not trying to trick a confession out of you, mate. But she's not going to come around -- you have to know that by now. So move on, let her go." He paused. "Can you?"

James was silent, kicking scuff-marks on the sidewalk and watching his shoe intensely. Then, suddenly and quite grimly, his head snapped up and he met Sirius' eyes. In a low voice he said simply, "No."

2.4

The first weeks of summer passed more swiftly than either James or Lily had dared to hope. Solstice came and went, and the days started getting shorter again, and the same sun beat down with the same relentlessness in Godric's Hollow as in Surrey. A few owls flew between the two homes, but not so many as one might think, because their relationship was not one easily captured with ink and parchment. Lily sent one owl just days after they'd left Hogwarts:

James,  
You seemed pretty overcast our last day at school, after we went flying. Everything okay then?  
Don't bite my head off, I'm asking because I care.  
LE

He waited a couple days so as not to seem overeager, but replied soon enough:

Lily,  
I know you care, I'm fine. Really. Guess I was just dreading the holidays, which are much better now that they're finally here. Sirius has a flying motorbike (!), he's stashing it here till he finds a way to hide it from his folks. Life's not the same without you around to drive me nuts, though.  
Come soon.  
j.

And then, one night in early August, there was another. Lily had taken the brunt of Petunia's temper all day, and having finally retreated to her furnace of a bedroom she now sat cross-legged on her bed, in her underwear, feeling desolate. Her orange hair hung limply down her back and when tears suddenly stung at her eyes for no reason at all, she rubbed them furiously away with the heels of her hands.

She slipped on her reading glasses, their heavy tortoise-shell frames reminding her she would always be a dork at heart, and read over some stupid note James had sent her more than a month ago. It had taken him three days just to jot a response to her little question. The last she'd heard from him. Her best friend! A thick feeling welled up in her chest, and she felt suddenly exhausted. Clucking softly to call her owl, she pulled a sheet of parchment from the stack on her desk and sucked the end of her shabby quill. She wrote:

Oh James,  
I'm feeling lonely. Tell me something nice?  
LE

Whose reply he fortunately did _not_ delay, instead scribbling off a quick note and sending it back with the same owl that had delivered her plea.

Lily,  
Christmas morning.  
Exploding Snap with the boys in the common room, when it's cold out.  
Evading Filch after we've pulled a really outstanding prank.  
The first moments of a Gryffindor-Slytherin match, where the sky feels enormous.  
The wispy bits of hair at your forehead and the nape of your neck, that curl when it rains.  
Sirius' motorbike.  
Are all nice things.  
j.

She smiled when she read that. More than smiled; she felt a hot blush creep up her neck and ears and even blotch her forearms. She absently touched her hair and reread the note; and again.

That night in Godric's Hollow James imagined her in his arms.

**A/N: I decided that this story works better in past tense, but I haven't gotten around to changing the tense in the first chapter. Bear with me. In the meantime, please review! I hate resorting to base bribery, but I swear reviews make me about a million times more likely to keep going with the story. (Shallow, I know.) Love! Aseret**


	3. Hypotheses

3.1

Soon enough Lily arrived in Godric's Hollow, heavy trunk in tow. She knocked on the green door of the Potters' small house, unable to stop herself from grinning in anticipation. _Finally!_ Finally she was here.

Then the door was flung open with a _bang_ and James stood before her with a grin to match her own. He let his eyes roam over her, more slowly and intensely than was strictly necessary, just this once. It had been so long... he deserved to look, to take in the whole of her. Lily's thick hair lay in a braid over one shoulder, the ends curling madly. Her v-neck t-shirt was a little big on her, but still it didn't hide the swell of her breasts. He supposed the t-shirt had been black once, but now it had grayed from wear. Worn out too were the blue jean cutoffs that revealed very, very white legs.

"Did you go outside at _all_ this summer?" he asked with a laugh. "You look like a ghost!"

"God, I know," she said sheepishly, glancing at her arms. "It's really awful, isn't it?"

"Nah, it's okay," he said, stepping closer and lowering his voice. "You wouldn't be _my_ Lily if you came here all tan and fit..."

"Hey! I'm fit!"

"Suuuure." He moved closer. Her breath quickened a little.

"What're you --" she began in a quiet voice.

Looking into her eyes, he said, "I'm... just..." And then, in the blink of an eye, he had reached around her, snatched her trunk off the ground, and hoisted it up in his arms. "You're _definitely_ not fit enough to handle this," he said with a smirk.

"Looks like you're not having the easiest time of it yourself," she retorted, throwing a long glance at his straining arms.

"Well this thing is fucking heavy! What do you have in here, an entire set of cauldrons?"

"Something like that."

"Arrrgh. Fine, follow me, your highness." And with that he turned from her and staggered into the house. Lily followed nimbly behind, kicking the door gently shut with one heel, feeling happier than she had for months.

Upstairs and down a narrow hallway, James dropped her trunk unceremoniously on his bedroom floor and collapsed on his bed.

"You're such a drama queen," Lily said lightly as she entered. But her eyes were not on him; rather, she was taking in the room around her.

It had been a long time since she'd been in James' room, but it hadn't changed much in the meantime. His narrow bed, with its worn blue quilt and defeated-looking pillows, was wedged in one corner by the window, an enormous poster of Puddlemere United plastered above the headboard. Every available surface -- nightstand, dresser, bookshelf -- was crammed (not unexpectedly) with spellbooks, Quidditch paraphernalia, chocolate frogs, scratched records, and mugs fluttering teabag tags like flags. It was a small room, so most of the floor was taken up by a dusty mattress James had unearthed, made up somewhat haphazardly with clean sheets and a rather too-small green blanket.

"Oh, you set this up for me?" Lily asked, patting the mattress affectionately. "That's very nice of you."

"No, no!" James said, jumping up hastily from his spot on the bed. "You get the real bed, of course. _I_ , the noble gentleman, will take the floor." He gave a low bow and she could just barely make out a dimple in his left cheek as he tried to keep his face solemn.

"Well _thank you_ , sir!" Lily cried, throwing herself onto the bed and lying smack in the middle, spread-eagled on her back. "Mmm, I am _so_ comfortable --" wriggling around "-- thank _goodness_ I don't have to sleep on the hard, cold floor!" She smirked, and he halfheartedly flung a pillow at her from his spot on the mattress.

"Oh shut up," he said, but he looked pleased. He wished his house had a guest bedroom she could stay in, so she'd feel more at home, but it was a very small house and his mother refused to have either of them set up camp on their only sofa for the rest of the summer. Still, Lily looked happy enough, and he couldn't imagine ever again having the chance to sleep so close to her. It would be torture, certainly, but he couldn't help feeling a little giddy all the same.

3.2

Hours later, neither Lily nor James had moved from their spots on bed and mattress; they were deep in conversation about Petunia's engagement and Sirius' family troubles when the door banged open downstairs. James leapt up. "That'll be them!" he said, bounding out the door and down the stairs. Both his parents, Beth and Will Potter, worked at the Ministry; his beloved older brother, Adam, had been training as an Auror since he graduated from Hogwarts two years prior. In these times of heightening danger around the city, there was safety in numbers, so when they could the three Potters commuted to and from work together.

Today was no different; Lily followed James down the stairs to find four faces looking expectantly in her direction.

"Lily, my dear!" Beth cried, enveloping Lily in an enormous hug.

"Mrs. Potter, good to see you too," came Lily's muffled reply.

When she released her Will came forward, catching both of Lily's hands in his own and grasping them heartily. "Glad you could make it, Lily," he said warmly, his eyes crinkling into a smile.

"Me too," she said, sending him a shy grin.

Then Adam stepped forward. Lily noticed that he was brawnier than when she last saw him; his broad chest and shoulders were tightly muscled, his skin tanned, his normally smooth face rough now with a few days' growth. His thick brown hair was a little long, falling in messy waves around his neck. It should be illegal to be that attractive, she thought. His dark eyes sparkled.

"Lily," he said simply, drawing her into a brief hug.

Somehow she retrieved her voicebox from the place it had fallen somewhere in her small intestine, and she replied with, "Adam," hoping it didn't sound too strangled.

James' expression darkened almost imperceptibly; his posture was suddenly stiff. "Lily and I already ate," he said a little too loudly. "We stuck some leftovers in the fridge for you guys, but she still has to unpack."

"I don't really --" she began, hoping to spend more than thirty seconds with Adam, but something in James' eyes made her stop short and change tacks. "Right," she said briskly, "almost forgot." Turning to the other Potters: "I promise I'm not avoiding you; if I don't unpack now it'll _never_ happen, you know how it is."

"Of course," said Beth kindly. "I'm sure we'll see plenty of you in the coming weeks."

"You bet," Lily said with a grin. Then James caught her hand and tugged her upstairs.

As soon as James' bedroom door shut behind them, Lily turned to him, arms crossed over her chest. "All right, go," she said.

"Hm?"

"Explain."

He opened his mouth to protest, then thought the better of it and gave a sigh instead. She'd see through him if he tried to lie. She always did. "Sorry," he said.

"No, it's fine -- I'll get to see them later. But I think I do deserve some kind of explanation. Why the sudden mood?"

"It's just..." He gave her a funny look. "What do you think of Adam?"

Her expression softened. "He looks _good_ , doesn't he?" she said dreamily. "He must be really strong from all his Auror training, don't you think?"

"Probably," James grumbled. He thought of his pale skin, his narrow chest and thin legs. His own rather pathetic attempts at facial hair, so sparse he barely needed to shave. His messy mop of hair, which would always look juvenile. His glasses, eternally nerdy.

"How's his training going, anyway?" she asked, looking concerned.

"Oh, I think it's all right. Tough, though. They've accelerated the training program since Voldemort's become more of an immediate threat, and at the beginning, he talked about dropping out every night. Things are better now, though." He sighed, staring at a spot on the wall.

"What?" Lily asked with a frown, putting a hand on his arm.

"It's just... I guess I'm just jealous."

"Of Adam?"

He threw her a _what-do-you-think_ sort of look. "I mean, I'm still just some schoolboy fumbling through Arithmancy and... and trying to figure out _girls_ and playing on my stupid House Quidditch team like it's the most important thing in the world, while he's learning to fight... to fight _evil_ and protect the people he loves and risk his life and --" He stopped, ran a hand frustratedly through his hair. "God, even _you_ like him better than me, Lily! I know it sounds juvenile and I'm whining but Lily it _sucks_ , it really does, when you're happier than you've ever been because your best friend's come to stay with you and you finally have her to yourself and then, y'know, your handsome and noble older fucking brother comes home and suddenly you're just some scrawny supporting character. Again. Like it always is with him. Fucking always." His breath came erratically as he reached the end of his rant, and he finally looked up at Lily.

Her eyes were big and held an odd mixture of pity and confusion and sympathy and love and anxiety. "James, I --"

"Shit, Lily. That's not what I meant. Forget I said that. I mean, hypothetically. Hypothetically if that happened it would suck."

She gave him a weak smile. "Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone to hypothetically feel that way."

"Yeah, me neither!" he said frantically. "Good thing no one does!"

"Because if that were the case, I would hypothetically tell this guy that he's still my best friend, and he's not scrawny at all, in fact I think his Quidditch muscles are very manly. And I like him better than anyone in the world, even if his older brother is rather devastatingly attractive. A girl can dream, right? And still be loyal to her best friend?"

"Yeah..." he muttered, looking somewhat but not entirely mollified. There was a pause, and one corner of his mouth quirked into a crooked grin. "So you think my muscles are manly, eh?"

She swatted at him. "Hypothetically!"

3.3

Still, all was not well. James, determined to disprove his entire confession of jealousy and inadequacy, would sometimes disappear for hours on end so that Lily wouldn't think him desperate for her attention. When she asked where he'd been, he'd rather thornily dismiss her concern by suggesting that next time she hang out with Adam instead of worrying about him.

It stung, but Lily tried not to let it show. She didn't understand how acting as a sympathetic listener and _best friend_ had managed to wound his pride so deeply, but she didn't want to push him, so she rather wearily decided to play along.

3.4

Late in August came one such day. Lily and James had spent the morning together, flying, but then he'd gone to shower and she had curled up on the sofa downstairs to read. She was wearing an old floral dress, short-sleeved, short-skirted, with buttons down the front, which she thought James had really not appreciated. He'd given her a long look when she'd emerged from the bathroom that morning, then announced that such a dress was supremely impractical for flying. "I want to look _pretty_ for once, okay?" she'd snapped at him, at which point he flushed red and ducked into the bathroom to dress.

She was musing on this, more than her book, when she heard a window clack upstairs and let out a great sigh. These days he escaped by broom out his bedroom window; she craned her neck and just barely made out his silhouette streaking across the sky. Lily put down her book, climbed the stairs, and sure enough he had left a scrawled note on her quilt. Something about Sirius' motorbike and "don't know when I'll be home," so she squared her shoulders and determined to make the best of it.

She tied a striped dishcloth around her waist as a makeshift apron, then rummaged through the refrigerator and set about practicing some new cooking spells. Before long she was surrounded by the happy bustle of bubbling pots, steaming skillets stirred by energetic whisks, and knives chopping scallions of their own volition. Having the house to herself, she put one of James' most worn records on the turntable and danced barefoot on the checkered linoleum to its opening strains, skirt flapping around her thighs.

James had doubled back. He did this sometimes, spiteful though he knew it to be, because he wanted to see how Lily reacted to his absence. Some days she looked desolate and lonely, which he was horrified to find made him feel rather nice -- she _missed_ him! -- but others, like today, she was annoyingly cheerful. Look at her cooking like that, being all _productive_ , he thought with a scowl. More than once he came close to giving up, going in, joining her in her happy domestic pursuits. He wanted to, wanted more than anything to be with her, but he could never manage to overcome his pride long enough to do it.

She disappeared for a moment, then he heard the sounds of his favorite record filling his house. And then she started to dance. As he watched her his chest tightened uncomfortably, and his throat went dry. Why had he made that stupid comment about her dress? -- now he could see it was the most perfect article of clothing ever created, ever worn, and really she should wear nothing but that dress for the rest of the summer. If she refused, she'd have to wear... nothing... for the rest of the summer. Now his mind was going places it probably oughtn't; he closed his eyes and moaned a little, very softly. He wanted to beat off then and there, but realized that doing so would make him the most obscene sort of pervert.

He opened his eyes again, and now she was leaning over one of the bigger pots, its hot steam making her face flush pink and curling his favorite wispy hairs around her temples. Her skin was damp from sweat -- quite a hot day, he realized, noting to his slight surprise that he too was sweating. He watched as she undid a few more buttons on her dress, revealing vast amounts of --

But no. This was getting ridiculous; he shouldn't be here. You respect her, you respect her, you respect her, he kept chanting to himself like a mantra. Do not take advantage of this, you respect her, you respect her, you respect her. Before he could change his mind, he jumped on his broom and sped off to Sirius'.

3.5

James was M.I.A. all evening, but the rest of the Potters returned home at their usual hour to loud music, hot food, and a very exuberant Lily.

"Wow, look at all this!" Beth exclaimed, beaming at Lily. "How wonderful of you to prepare dinner!" She narrowed her eyes suddenly. "Did James put you up to this?" she asked conspiratorially.

"No, of course not!" Lily said with a laugh. "If he'd tried that one I'm pretty sure you'd be coming home to _him_ sweating over the oven instead of me." Her grin faded a little. "Actually, he's not even here. Went to Sirius' I think."

"He did?" Will said, a frown creasing his forehead.

When Beth and Will stepped from the kitchen to put down their bags, Adam leaned towards Lily. "Don't let him bother you," he said in a low voice. "James, poor coward, pulls this disappearing act whenever he finds himself in a situation he can't control. Which I'd guess, in this case, is you."

"What?"

He raised an eyebrow knowingly. "Anyway, don't let it hurt your feelings. I think --"

But Lily never heard what exactly Adam thought, because at that moment Beth and Will returned to the kitchen, their eyes trained on the food.

"Let's eat!" Adam cried, and in the ensuing bustle all traces of their earlier conversation were forgotten. The dinner was mostly delicious, the Potters agreed, with the exception of one suspicious mystery dish that smelled like cherries, tasted like burnt ham, and was nearly impossible to chew. Lily couldn't remember what she'd put in it to begin with, but she hastily cleared it to the kitchen and they all laughed it off as a garden gnome's handiwork.

Later that evening, Lily retreated upstairs to her bedroom, where she plunked down heavily on her bed and twisted her hands in her lap, feeling satisfied from such a happy dinner but lonely all the same. The energy she'd been channeling from her anger at James had finally worn off, and now she was drained. She didn't feel mad; she just plain missed her best friend.

There was a sudden knock on the door. "Come in!" she said, dabbing at her watery eyes. Thank goodness he'd decided to come home; her chest swelled with inexplicably huge relief.

But James _hadn't_ decided to come home; it was Adam, in all his tan-and-muscled glory.

"Oh, Adam, hi," she said, trying to mask her disappointment.

He sent her a questioning look, she nodded, and he sat down on the bed beside her. "Sorry I'm not him," he said. "I know you were hoping he'd come back tonight."

She sighed. "Yeah, but I didn't really think he would."

"I think you should know," he said abruptly, "though you might already. James is pretty in love with you."

Her reaction was not what he expected; her expression turned dark and she looked at him quite seriously. "No, he's not. He used to be, but he's over that now. I know because back then, he would never have left me alone like this. He would never have invited me here only to insult me and ignore me and leave me entirely to my own devices."

"Lily, I don't --"

"No, it's fine. I like having some time to myself and I love, Adam I _love_ spending time with you and Mr. and Mrs. Potter. And certainly being here, even alone, is a thousand times better than being stuck in Surrey with my insufferable family, but _still_. The fact remains that James is definitely not in love with me, and even though he's still my best friend I think that right now he doesn't _like_ me much, either. It's just a thing, it's fine, we'll get over it. He needs to get over his stupid pride and then we'll be okay again." She was flushed and bright-eyed from her impassioned rant.

"I just think that --" Adam tried to protest.

"Don't think," she cut him off in a low and furious voice, seized suddenly with an urge sprung from her attraction to Adam, and her loneliness, and her recent numbness, and a vague desire to hurt James like he was hurting her. Those and a thousand other reasons, each more nebulous than the last. She turned to Adam's concerned face and all of a sudden her lips were on his, her hands in his hair, her legs straddling his waist. He responded instantly, not thinking, just reacting to the rather unexpected pleasure of being assaulted by a beautiful and passionate redhead. Repeatedly. In a sort of inexcusably irresistible way. So he kissed back. And he did not emerge from the bedroom for a very long time.

3.6

When Adam did finally shuffle down the hall to his own room, mussy-haired and flushed, the door swung shut behind him with a distinctive _click_. Lily, equally tousled, sat very still on the bed for several minutes, thinking. Her mind was a mess of disjointed half-conclusions, of lust and satisfaction, guilt and self-righteousness, pride and emptiness. A sudden wave of exhaustion overcame her, and she lay down, still wearing the dress, burying her face in her pillow as she tried to sleep. She tossed and turned fitfully for hours, never quite sinking into unconsciousness, her mind too busy and her body too anxious for peaceful dreams.

When James crept back into his room, hours later, he found her curled up in the fetal position in the middle of his mattress on the floor, nose buried in the little green blanket, dress riding up her bare, tangled legs. Careful not to wake her, he pulled the quilt off his bed and draped it over her legs. Then he stood, just watching her: the even rise and fall of her chest, the REM flutter of her translucent eyelids, the determination with which her hand made a loose fist even in sleep. His legs did that jelly thing, so he lay down on the bed, also clothed, also messy-minded. But unlike Lily, he fell asleep at once.

3.7

Lily awoke determined. She straightened the dress which was twisted around her waist, noticing the quilt that hadn't been there before. She remembered with a little jolt that she'd finally fallen asleep last night on the mattress that smelled like James -- which would explain why the boy in question was stretched out on the bed beside her, snoring softly.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Determined, right, she reminded herself. Leaning on one arm, she reached up to gently shake James' shoulder. "James, wake up," she whispered.

"Hmm mmm," he replied.

"James, open your eyes, c'mon,"

One eye peeked blearily open. "Whhhat," he said. "'ts early."

Suddenly she was all business; she sat straight up on the mattress. "James, yesterday you expressed disapproval of my dress. You said that trying to be pretty was impractical."

"I didn't --"

"That was the gist of it! Well James, I've had enough. I will dress impractically if I want, because to be totally honest, I don't want to look like a tomboy in front of Adam."

James' eyes snapped open.

"There! I said it! You can start shouting now, I don't care, just get it over with, James." Her hair, a frizzy haystack as it always was in the mornings, framed her livid face magnificently, he thought.

He didn't know what to say. His heart was in his belly, and his brain was mush because it was too early, and why was she mad, and what did Adam have to do with all this, and when goddammit _when_ did he ever say it was impractical to be pretty! She was always pretty; should he tell her that? Then again, she was also frequently impractical, but... oh god, it was too early. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

Meanwhile Lily flew about the room with manic energy. She pulled tops off hangers and unearthed shoes from the depths of her trunk. She even rifled through James' dresser, but slammed the drawer shut quite suddenly. Then her wand was in her hand and she was transfiguring things; then she was in the bathroom and the shower was running; then more transfiguring; and the sun was painting the whole room gold; and then everything was still.

"James," she said imperiously. He was lying on his back and breathing quite evenly, but Lily wasn't fooled. She stood above him and cleared her throat impatiently. His eyes cracked open.

Then widened. A stunned silence. He moistened his lips but his mouth was suddenly very dry. His heart hammered. "Whoa," he said.

Her hair was down, wild and glossy. She rarely wore makeup, James knew, but now her eyes were smoky.

And her neckline was very, very low. Her chest was heaving and flushed from exertion, and the v-neck... was... low. The top was a bright dark blue, tied behind her neck, cutting a sharp line against her bare white shoulders. It hugged her curves, along her breasts and narrow waist and out again to her hips. The skirt, black, frothed down around her knees. Her feet were bare.

"Um, you look really --" his voice cracked, and for that, in that instant, he cursed himself a thousand times in a thousand languages, and curses that didn't yet exist, and curses that had long been forgotten. "I mean, what are you wearing!" It came out more rudely than he'd intended.

Her face fell, though she masked it well, and her shoulders sagged just a little. "Oh shit," she muttered, "you're right. Who am I kidding?" She turned to go, to change, to let go of this stupid charade she'd put on for god knows what reason, to impress whom? Some half-asleep guy who couldn't care less? His older brother who was a thousand miles out of her league? How desperate, she thought of herself. How vain.

But James scrambled to his feet, still clumsy from sleep, and caught her shoulders. When she felt his rough hands on her skin she shivered, went stiff. Still hot-minded from the night before, she imagined what might happen next: He would run his big hands down her arms, then up again, on her shoulders, her back, up her neck to finally clasp her face. He would pull her to him, guide her roughly, stumbling, backwards till she hit his bedroom wall and then he would press his whole body over hers, every inch of it, and his mouth would be on hers and his hands would be everywhere, everywhere, and one of her hands would tangle in his hair while the other explored that half inch of bare skin above his waistband and below his shirt, and he would gasp, and she would smile and press herself into him more completely and...

No. Because at the very instant that James realized he was holding her bare shoulders, he froze and snatched his hands back and stepped back awkwardly, twisting his hands together. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to grab you."

Her fantasy dissolved, turned to smoke and evaporated, just like that. "No, it's fine. It's fine."

"I just wanted to say, I guess, that you look nice. More than nice, and not... impractical? I guess. It's not even fair for me to say you look nice. Lily, you're beautiful, but you never needed to prove that to me. So..." his voice hardened, "if it's Adam you wanted to show, well, his room's right down the hall." Adam was a gentleman, but James realized that if Lily walked into Adam's room like that and caught him unawares, he'd probably make a move on her. James knew nothing of the previous night's events, but he had seen the way Adam eyed Lily. And Adam didn't hesitate the way James did... and Adam was experienced.

Oh, shit.

He turned his attention back to Lily, trying hastily to numb his heart, to prepare himself for the inevitable.

But poor Lily hadn't had time to numb her own heart, and the warmth that had filled her at James' initial words turned cold when he brought up Adam, _again_ , like she was some lovesick, attention-seeking slut. It hurt all the more because she half suspected the same thing of herself. What had she been thinking last night! She hardened her gaze. "I guess I will."

And turned. Slammed the door behind her.

He still couldn't believe his voice had cracked.

**A/N: I'm moving back in to school tomorrow, so things will be busy, but I'll try to keep updating regularly. This fic is so self-indulgent that it's enormous fun to write. That said, please review! Let me know what you think of Adam, and whether Lily or James is being more stubborn here, and any recommendations you might have. Or just drop me a line saying you liked it! I love love love reviews. Later, Aseret**


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